The present invention relates to a recycled secondary battery supply forecast system and recycled secondary battery supply forecast usage for forecasting the quantity level of recyclable secondary batteries that can be supplied.
Secondary batteries that are mounted on electrically driven vehicles and the like use globally limited resources such as nickel, cadmium and cobalt. Thus, from the perspective of environmental protection, the reuse and recycling of secondary batteries are desirable. As electrically driven vehicles equipped with secondary batteries, there are electric cars and hybrid vehicles equipped with both an internal combustion engine and a motor. In order to drive this kind of electrically driven vehicle with electricity, the mounted secondary batteries need to be charged using an external charger. Generally speaking, when a secondary battery is used for a long period, the performance thereof will degrade due to the repeated charging and discharging process. This degradation leads to decrease of the total capacity and maximum output current of the secondary battery. Moreover, the secondary battery will swell and deform accompanying such degradation.
Moreover, since secondary batteries are manufactured using rare metals, the manufacturing cost is extremely high. Thus, when a vehicle reaches its life, if the secondary batteries that were used in that vehicle have not degraded considerably, the manufacturing cost of another device can be reduced by reusing such secondary batteries in that other device. Moreover, when a vehicle reaches its life, if the secondary batteries that were used in that vehicle have degraded to the extent that they cannot be reused, by disposing such degraded secondary batteries and recycling the rare metals and the like, and using the recycled materials for the manufacture of a new secondary battery, the manufacturing cost of the new secondary battery can be reduced.
For a manufacturer of devices that have recycled batteries built therein, it is extremely important to grasp the quantity level and the performance level of recyclable secondary batteries that can be supplied and when such a quantity can be supplied upon devising its battery procurement plan and the device manufacturing plan. Moreover, for a secondary battery manufacturer, being able to grasp an amount of recycled materials that can be supplied and when such recycled materials can be supplied is extremely important information upon devising its secondary battery material procurement plan and the secondary battery manufacturing plan.
As an example of conventional technology related to the optimization of reusing secondary batteries, Patent Document 1 describes collecting battery information, which is unique to a secondary battery, in a battery information management device on a communication network, wherein the battery information management device sorts by the grade the secondary batteries when they are recycled based on the battery information which is unique to that secondary battery.
Patent Document 1: Patent Publication JP-A-2007-141464
Nevertheless, with the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1, while the secondary batteries are sorted by grade when they are recycled, there is a problem in that it is not possible to forecast the quantity level and the performance level of recyclable secondary batteries that can be supplied and when such a quantity can be supplied.